International political, military and economic position
Of course there are (at least) three variables here, although they are obviously related. We shall briefly consider them, focusing on the UK case. We have already dealt in passing with the importance of a state’s economic position.
However, it seems to us that this issue has been somewhat ignored in the literature which, as we saw, focuses very much on the debate about the aggregate level of globalization/regionalization. Clearly, not all states are inserted into the international economy to the same extent in the same way and these differences are likely to have some effect on states’ policy decisions. So, as an example, it is clear that the UK is more integrated into, and thus more likely to be exposed to/affected by, the international economy, than most other European (and indeed OECD) countries. Indeed, A. T. Kearney (2003) figures reveal that, out of 62 countries in 2001, the UK ranked: fourth in terms of total merchandise and services trade; fourth in terms of total FDI inflows and outflows; third in terms of total transfer payments and receipts; second in terms of income payments and receipts; and fourth in terms of total portfolio investment inflows and outflows. Of course, this doesn’t mean that its government is inevitably more constrained. However, it is a factor that needs to be considered.The UK has always been more integrated into the international economy than other countries because of its political and military history. Its imperial, indeed hegemonic, role was particularly strongly reflected in overseas investment (Held etal. 1999; Hirst and Thompson 1999). This is not the place to take this argument further, but there is clear path dependency involved here. The UK’s past international political and economic orientation in part explains its current high level of integration into the international economy. At the same time, given the key role that financial markets play in the international economy, London’s historic role as a financial sector clearly gave it an enormous advantage when financial markets were liberalized in the 1980s. Of course, the UK’s world role has declined throughout the last century, but, in the more recent period, its integration into Europe in both economic, and more reluctantly political, terms has increased. The issues involved here are beyond the scope of this paper, but it is important to emphasize one point. Any full understanding of the way in which the internationalization/globalization of economic relations has affected government policy needs to recognise how the changing nature of, in this case, Britain’s political/military role has mediated that relationship.
(b)
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